AI in the creative industry

Artificial intelligence has made a breakthrough into the world of human creativity, changing previous perceptions of creative work. Does AI pose a threat to artists? Or is it their ally, opening up new opportunities? Let’s take a closer look at how AI collaboration is affecting the creative professions and lean into the future to see what they might look like soon.

AI in the creative industry – table of contents:

What are the characteristics of the creative industry?

The creative industry includes all areas of art and design. It includes, among others:

Visual arts – from oil paintings to photography to creating icons for apps,
Film – from a flashy commercial of a few seconds to full-length Hollywood productions,
Literature – that is, writing in any form,
Music – from the jingles we immediately associate with our favorite YouTube channels to symphonic music,
Game design.

People working in the creative industry are characterized primarily by manual and technical skills related to their profession. But also creativity, imagination as well as the ability to think innovatively. Artistic sensitivity is also important.

Earnings in the creative industry vary widely and depend on the profession, experience and reputation of the creator in question. A beginner computer graphic designer or copywriter can earn about $1,000 a month, while a respected architect with many years of experience – even tens of thousands. Will generative AI change these numbers?

AI’s impact on the creative industry

The rise in popularity of artificial intelligence raises mixed feelings among artists. On the one hand, they fear that their work will be automated and AI will take over the role of the creator. On the other, they see it as a tool to make their work easier and expand their capabilities.

Potential threats from AI are primarily:

Risk of technological unemployment – AI can replace some specialists, such as graphic designers preparing conceptual sketches or web designers,
Unification of art – algorithms are based on existing works of art, so they can limit creativity and promote similar works,
Authorship issues – under the law, it is quite a problem to determine who is the creator of an AI-generated work. Currently, there are no clear regulations on issues related to generative AI.

However, AI also provides new opportunities, such as:

generating fresh inspiration – AI models can suggest non-obvious ideas and associations to artists, as well as help analyze style. In the case of writing, ChatGPT will work well here in the role of a critical editor, while in the case of images, the “describe” function available in Midjourney,
automating simple tasks – AI can create numerous sketches or 2D designs based on a verbal description, selectively match colors to brand colors, or perform “face swaps” – swapping a model’s face in different images, etc.
new art forms – with the facilitated creation of 3D models based on 2D graphics, AI provides an opportunity to create and present works in VR/AR technologies.

The impact of AI on the creative industry is therefore clearly neither positive nor negative. Through technology, the way we work will certainly change – it will require the ability to describe in words what we want to achieve. That is, for example, a broader knowledge of the history of literature or art to precisely define the style we want to draw inspiration from. At the same time, there will be new challenges, such as a much more difficult start for aspiring representatives of the creative industries.

AI tools for creative industry departments

Because of the inevitable intertwining of creation with generative artificial intelligence, it makes sense to base the way you work on AI tools from the beginning of your career path. Although they are evolving rapidly, new industry standards are already slowly clarifying.

Texts – support for copywriters and content managers

The primary tool to support the work of creative industry writers are three chat rooms

ChatGPT from OpenAI,
Google Bard, and
Claude from Anthropic is available for those in the US and UK.

These are the most versatile solutions based on the latest language models (LLM), which, after typing the appropriate prompt, will allow not only to creation of multiple versions of advertising slogans but also a draft article. Most interestingly, they can turn into a critical editor who can point out errors in the created text and suggest valuable changes and areas for improvement.

In addition to the strong trio of chatbots, however, there is a whole range of more specialized tools to aid writing. Here are some of them:

Copy.ai – automatically generates product descriptions, ads and other texts based on keywords,

Rytr – ready-made templates and guidelines for writing different types of content.

Jasper – a writing assistant to help create content in different languages.

Images – AI support for graphic designers and designers

Graphic designers and designers have a range of to choose from that allow them to create sketches in a snap. Of particular note are:

DALL-E 2 – a free tool from OpenAI that generates images based on text descriptions and enables you to generate a wider frame for an uploaded photo,

Midjourney – creates impressive illustrations, graphics and concept sketches, unfortunately, it is only available to subscribers,

Canva – a very popular graphic design program with AI-supported features.

Videos – video content with the help of AI

Also, footage makers in the creative industry have a lot to choose from. Here the offer is more diverse, for example:

Synthesia – allows you to “animate” avatars to make business video presentations more appealing,

Runway – a platform for creating realistic videos consisting of generated, consistent images and sounds based on entered text. You can create custom scenarios or use ready-made templates.

Descript – edits video recordings based on audio transcription.

What will creative professions look like in the future?

In the perspective of a few-odd years, AI could completely transform work in the creative industry. While that’s very risky given the pace of generative AI development, let’s tempt some scenarios for the future:

partial automation – AI takes on simple tasks, such as processing photos or creating sketches, while humans focus on conceptual work and fine-tuning the artificial intelligence’s direction.
new professional roles – there will be positions like “AI trainer,” who teaches artificial intelligence models by pointing out which implementations are better and which are worse; which ones fit the description more, and which ones don’t,
the increase in the importance of soft skills – qualities like creativity, empathy and reasoning will become even more important than before, as manual skills will become secondary in the creative industry,
fusion of mind and machine – this is the most sci-fi vision, according to which, to realize the potential of AI, people will learn to think in an “algorithmic” way, and commercial brain-machine interfaces will begin to emerge, enabling non-verbal communication,
new forms of art – with the help of artificial intelligence, completely new artistic genres and styles will be created, and commercial use of the content will be based on full personalization of content, or “creation on demand.”

The future will tell which scenario plays out. Most likely, the creative industries will see an evolution rather than a revolution. Still, it will be crucial for artists to open up to new technologies and learn to exploit them. Then AI will become not an enemy, but an ally in creating inspiring works.

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Author: Robert Whitney
JavaScript expert and instructor who coaches IT departments. His main goal is to up-level team productivity by teaching others how to effectively cooperate while coding.
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